22 Battalion

CHAPTER 2 — Maleme, Crete

Of all the days of the war one stands alone in the minds of
the battalion. The day is 20 May at Maleme, Crete.

Twenty-second Battalion's area had the same kind of features
as the rest of the coastal strip round Canea, which is near the
north-west corner of Crete. Foothills of the main mountain
range came down towards the sea, and the battalion position
included two spurs running north and south. ‘Crete was a wonderful place, almost every inch cultivated with grapes, olive
groves, orange groves, and grain,’ wrote Sergeant-Major
Pender1 ‘To get on the high ground and see the various squares
of different-coloured cultivation was a wonderful sight.’ In
Captain Thornton's2 view: ‘The lack of a thousand-and-one
Army forms was a Godsend.’

On the north the battalion's boundary was the sea with a
sand and pebble beach unaffected by tides. Between this and
the foothills was the airfield. Crete had no good airfields. To
the east of Maleme airfield lay the hamlet of Pirgos (often called,
mistakenly, Maleme). Pirgos, marking the battalion's eastern
boundary, was typically Greek. The dome of the Orthodox
Church rose above the houses, which were flat-roofed and
crowded. The streets were narrow, dirty, smelly. The western
boundary, the Tavronitis River, had a gravel and boulder bed
600 to 800 yards wide. The ‘river’ itself was only a shallow
creek, like some of the smaller snow-fed rivers of Canterbury.
The area west of the river was not defended3 Had the Maori
Battalion been there instead of in a relatively quiet area five
miles to the east, Crete might not have fallen.

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with groves of olive trees sixteen to eighteen feet high. The
groves gave almost complete (though rather obvious) cover from
the air. The hillsides were terraced with stone banks and planted
with grape-vines, the chunky, black trunks two to three feet
high and in full leaf. These vines were terrors for tripping up
a man in a hurry. The broken land, the olive groves and the
vineyards made it impossible to find a spot which gave a good
view of the whole battalion area. This prevented development
of supporting fire. To make matters worse small ravines, ten
to forty feet deep, fanned out from the bottom of the eastern
spur to the coast.

Mention should be made of the Fleet Air Arm men at
Maleme, for criticism still comes from several quarters of
‘leaderless and demoralised mobs’ of airmen milling most disconcertingly about the battalion's area when battle was joined,
for indeed they were a hindrance from the infantryman's viewpoint.

In February 1941 aircraft from the Illustrious (heavily divebombed west of Malta the month before) were transferred to
Maleme, reinforced by fighters from Egypt, moved to southern
Greece, and in five weeks sank five Italian ships, damaged five
more, and attacked Brindisi. The squadron returned to Maleme,
now under RAF command (it should be noted), the Swordfish
and Blenheims returned to Egypt, and the Fleet Air Arm and
RAF pilots took turns in flying the handful of Hurricanes,
Fulmars and Gladiators. On 17 May only one plane, a Hurricane, was airworthy;4 it was piloted by Lieutenant A. R.
Ramsay, RNVR, who had shot down two enemy aircraft the
day before. This steadfast officer's testimony will be given later.

The battalion, a little over 600 strong after the campaign in
Greece, marched into the Maleme area at the end of April, and
‘from about 8 May until 20 May he [German aircraft] gave
us a shake-up about every couple of hours,’ noted Major Jim
Leggat. ‘You feel terribly naked swimming in the sea if a plane
page 36

fifth brigade, maleme, 20 may 1941

page 37
is machine-gunning.’ At dawn and dusk everyone stood-to:
from 5.30 a.m. to 7 a.m. and from 8.15 p.m. to 9 p.m.

A strong attack on Crete was expected from sea and air. On
17 May troops heard from Intelligence ‘that Jerry would attack
on that day, the 17th, or the 19th and would bring 15,000
troops by parachute and 20,000 by sea.’ Fifth Brigade, holding
a position running west from Platanias to the Tavronitis River
and extending up to two miles inland, was charged with ‘a
spirited defence…to counter attack and destroy immediately.’ Altogether, representatives of fourteen formations and units5
were concerned in defending Maleme airfield. Commanders of
the New Zealand units and detachments met in conference in
the Maleme Court House on 11 May so that, in Brigadier
Hargest's words, the defence would ‘be properly co-ordinated
and confusion avoided when an actual attack takes place.’ The
COs of 22 and 23 Battalions had already met three days before
to arrange SOS signals ‘should other means of communication
fail.’

Twenty-second Battalion's task was to hold the airfield and
its approaches. Fifth Brigade had laid down: ‘In the event of
a major landing being made on the drome, support and reserve
coys will be utilised for immediate counter-attack under cover
of mortars and M.G. fire….If necessary support will be
called for from 23 Bn and should … [communications fail]
the call will be by “verey” signal (WHITE-GREEN-WHITE).’
Twenty-first and 23rd Battalions, in addition to holding their
areas, were to be prepared for counter-attack on the airfield.
These two units were within about one and a half miles, south-east and east, of Headquarters 22 Battalion. Twenty-eight
(Maori) Battalion, as well as holding its area round Platanias,
was ‘to be available for counter attack’. The order was that 22
Battalion's position would be defended at all costs: obviously
no plan of withdrawal was considered.

The battalion's positions looked on the map roughly like the
mark of a deformed left foot four and a half miles round, a
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considerable distance, and enclosing an area hopelessly large
for all-round defence by twenty officers and 592 other ranks.
About thirty all ranks had been evacuated sick just before the
invasion. Headquarters Company,6 turned into a rifle company,
was in and around Pirgos village; a platoon was away guarding
the Air Ministry Experimental Station (a radar station). C
Company was firmly planted about the airfield. D Company
covered a bridge by the airfield and extended half a mile southwards along the east bank of the Tavronitis River (the western
bank was not defended). A Company held high ground overlooking the riverbed and airfield; this high ground included
a 300-foot hill called Point 107, and by this point was Battalion
Headquarters. B Company was holding a ridge south-east of
Point 107. The battalion, therefore, held and encircled the airfield and the vitally important Point 107. Telephones connected each company headquarters to Battalion Headquarters,
but all lines were cut and useless when the blitz ended. An
untrustworthy radio linked Battalion Headquarters with 5 Brigade Headquarters, four miles away to the east.

A brief glimpse at the enemy is necessary. Credit for the idea
of invading Crete by air is claimed by General Kurt Student.7
The operation (code-named MERCURY) was commanded by
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Colonel-General Alexander Löhr. Despite close air reconnaissance and some espionage, the Germans did not locate the infantry positions accurately (our camouflage precautions had
not been in vain), although their estimate of ten days for clearing Crete8
was only four days short. On the other hand, although they had planned to take all four main centres on the
first day, none except Maleme was captured within a week or
ten days. Organisational difficulties postponed invasion from
15 May to the 20th. Some 22,000 men were chosen for the
whole operation, including mountain troops who could not be
landed unless an airfield were captured or the sea route secured.
On invasion day the four spearheads (about 10,000 men) would
land from the air in distinct groups spaced along the northern
coast of Crete. Nearly one-third of them would descend in the
Maleme sector defended by 5 Brigade, where 22 Battalion, holding an area three times larger than that of 21 or 23 Battalion,
would meet the brunt of the attack later in the day. (More
paratroops would actually land in 23 Battalion's area; 22 Battalion would receive not only paratroops but almost all the
glider troops, and would later have to withstand the pressure
of two whole paratroop battalions which had landed and assembled out of reach on the undefended ground to the west.)
Winning an airfield immediately was vital: only then could
reinforcements arrive. The Germans clearly realised that, with
no suitable ships and without control of the seas, the capture of
an airfield was absolutely essential to success in Crete.

On invasion day the Assault Regiment,9 the élite of the invasion
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force, descended on Maleme. First came the gliders,
probably forty of them, carrying about 400 men altogether (excluding the pilots). The glider troops, about to suffer 75 per
cent casualties, were superbly equipped—whereas 15 Platoon,
awaiting assault on the most westerly tip of the highly prized
airfield, had grenades of jam tins filled with concrete and plugs
of gelignite with fuses.

The Assault Regiment, Student's pride and joy, was to take the
airfield and Point 107. A detachment from III Battalion plus
some of its Regimental Headquarters, which grated down in
belly landings just south of the Tavronitis bridge, was raked
and cut with heavy fire (from D Company), but took the bridge.
The detachment's commander, Major Braun, was among those
killed. A second company of the Assault Regiment landed its
gliders at the mouth of the Tavronitis River and made towards
the airfield, but was halted and held (by C Company), and its
commander, Lieutenant Plessen, also met his death. The third
party of gliders (a battalion headquarters and a company)
came slanting down along the south-east and south-west slopes
of Point 107, to be dealt with effectively by Headquarters Company and B and D Companies, and again the commander,
Major Koch, was killed.

Soon after the gliders descended, in came the regiment's
paratroops, about a dozen men spewing out of each fat Junkers
52 at heights of 300 to 600 feet, some firing as they descended,
‘indiscriminately certainly, but keeping our heads down.’
Glider crews could rally quickly and fight as a team, but paratroops, scattered as they were, took longer to group together.
Three battalions of paratroops came in over Maleme. Two of
these battalions landed in comparative safety in undefended
land west of the Tavronitis River along the coast road leading
west from the bridge and out of 22 Battalion's reach.10 Here
was the generous reserve of strength for continuing the assault
on the airfield. The third battalion of paratroops, descending
all unaware of its grisly doom west of Pirgos village and fairly
close to the coast, was cut to mincemeat by 21, 22, and 23
Battalions and an engineer detachment—two-thirds slaughtered with all their officers.

The commander of the Assault Regiment, General Meindl,
soon to be severely wounded by 22 Battalion this day, pressed
all available men into two assaults, one by the bridge and the
other a right hook which crossed the river south of 22 Battalion
and aimed north to Point 107. This two-pronged attack led
to the crucial fighting of the day.

The daily hate followed the dawn. For days the bombing
had been increasing steadily. Flying low, fighters and bombers
raked vineyards and olive groves. No 22 Battalion men were
injured. The planes turned to the sea and the men prepared
for breakfast, but again the air-raid siren sounded from the
mysterious Air Ministry Experimental Station tucked away up
in the hills. The time was now nearly eight o'clock. Cursing men,
still hungry, had just taken cover in trench and under trees when
twenty-four heavy bombers appeared, the first of an endless
fleet, wave upon wave, bombing, strafing, diving. The approach of the fleet was first felt through the ground rather than
noticed from the sky, one man remembers. The whole of 5
Brigade's area received an unprecedented rain of bombs, particularly 22 Battalion's area, with an estimated 3000 bombs
falling round the airfield. Dust and smoke billowed up; the
earth shook with explosions; trees splintered; slit trenches caved
in (in one substantial five-man trench only Joe Chittenden11
survived); men, dazed and numb with the fury of the assault,
bled from ears and mouths. ‘The silence after the [blitz],’ writes
Sergeant Sargeson,12 ‘was eerie, acrid and ominous.’ Says Sergeant Twigg13 of the intelligence section: ‘The immediate countryside before densely covered by grape vines and olive trees
was bare of any foliage when the bombing attack ceased and
the ground was practically regularly covered by large and small
bomb craters.’

A thick blanket of dust and smoke rising hundreds of feet
blurred or blotted out many a man's view. Under cover of this
the gliders and then the paratroops came in, and most of them
were down by nine o'clock.

The majesty of the arrival of this armada and the descent
certainly awed but definitely did not demoralise the New Zealanders. Action came as a relief—almost a grim joy—after
cowering under cover for a fortnight of air raids, and the remark, ‘Just like the duckshooting season!’, was widespread at
the time. Indeed the First World War was worlds away from
this unique invasion, in which the enemy, the artillery, and the
machine guns came from the sky, and a solid front no longer
existed; each man was a front in himself, and the enemy could
strike from in front, from both flanks, from behind, separately
or simultaneously. In this new war the very moments were
precious; in those first deadly, vulnerable ten minutes hundreds
of paratroops were slain as they swayed and stumbled and
groped and grouped over 5 Brigade's ground.

Captain Campbell (D Company): ‘My first thought was
“This is an airborne landing”. I still have vivid recollections
of the gliders coming down with their quiet swish, swish, dipping down and swishing in.’

Private Fellows,14 (HQ Company): ‘The first thing that met
my startled gaze when I looked out was the descending paratroopers. My throat seemed to get very dry all of a sudden and
I longed for company.’

A lance-corporal parachutist from Hamburg: ‘My parachute
had scarcely opened when bullets began spitting past me from
all directions. It had felt so splendid just before to jump in sunlight over such wonderful countryside, but my feelings suddenly
changed. All I could do was to pull my head in and cover my
face with my arms.’

Some gliders landed on the terraces stretching from 22 Battalion's headquarters down to the beach north of Pirgos; some
landed in the valley east of Battalion Headquarters; most landed
in the gravel bed of the Tavronitis River, above and below the
bridge. No aircraft landed on the airfield on 20 May, but a few
troop-carriers landed on the beach late in the day.

The Luftwaffe crossed the coast a mile or more west of the
airfield—out of effective Bofors range—and flew inland at about
500 feet. The two 3-inch anti-aircraft guns on Point 107 could
not tackle effectively such low-flying aircraft. The planes turned
towards Maleme in a broad swing, skimming low over A and B
Companies. The slow troop-carriers do not seem to have been
fired at by all of the ten Bofors round the airfield, an angry
point with the infantry at the time and later.15

Glider and parachute troops numbering probably 500 (perhaps 600) landed in 22 Battalion's area, and at once the day's
battle splintered into a confused series of individual actions by
the companies, which are best followed by attempting to trace
each company's experiences in turn. One enemy group landed
by Pirgos village itself in Headquarters Company's area.

Headquarters Company (Lieutenant Beaven, three officers
and about sixty men, mostly administrative staff not previously
riflemen) was completely isolated all day from Battalion Headquarters. It was at once cut off when several gliders silently
swam down between it and Battalion Headquarters, followed
by perhaps ten, perhaps twenty, plane-loads of parachutists
plus a small field gun. A second wave of parachutists fell about
mid-morning. The invaders suffered severe losses, but the well-equipped survivors rallied to form awkward strongpoints in
grape-vines and trees. These strongpoints made movement very
difficult indeed. Within an hour the company suffered its most
severe loss of the day. Sergeant-Major Matheson's16 platoon,
out on a limb to the south, was cut off and overrun. Details are
slender, but a survivor, Regimental Quartermaster-Sergeant
Woods,17 describes the scene: ‘Over comes the Hun with Stukas,
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Junkers and gliders, not mentioning the 109s. By the time the
Stukas and 109s had left us the air round about seemed to be
alive with Junkers, and believe me the birds that flew out of
them were pretty thick. They looked impossible as the odds
must have been easily 15 to 1.’ Shooting was good until grenades
got the front trenches, Matheson received his mortal wound,
and the platoon position fell.

Private Cowling18 tells of Matheson's stand. Just before the
invasion broke, Matheson ordered Corporal Hall19 and Cowling
over to the company cookhouse on fatigue. They had covered
about half the distance when ‘we came across two signallers
who said “The game is on you two, use that spare slit trench.”’
From the slit trench, facing towards Matheson's men, Cowling
saw ‘quite a few paratroops in this area, they were all easy meat,
those that came around…. the Transport Platoon were using
machine guns. Boy, and weren't they using them too! We later
found out they were enemy stuff they had conquered.’ Matheson's men held their own with ease until the Germans got a
good footing in an adjacent brick barn. Then the story changed
abruptly. Fire and grenades from this commanding position
brought the end. In their slit trench Hall and Cowling bagged
several paratroops (one, caught in an olive tree, dangled helplessly but fatally only six inches from the earth), and at one
stage Hall said: ‘Hey, you're having all the fun, let's change
ends for a while.’ But after the capture of the barn snipers shot
Hall through the right eye, and then Cowling was hit and
fainted. He was picked up by Germans next day and, together with about a dozen other wounded, was taken to the
battalion RAP, which had been captured by that time.

Even after taking Matheson's position, the enemy got no further towards Pirgos village; he was content to retain small
patches among the olives and try to edge westwards along the
coast to the focal point—the all-important airfield. Headquarters Company continued to hold Pirgos. Company Sergeant-Major Fraser was annoyed that anti-personnel mines
covering approaches to the company area had not been primed
so as to allow any relieving counter-attack complete freedom of
movement. He and Lieutenant Clapham had hastened to the
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company's western defences to encourage men to leave trenches
and fire at paratroops in the air. This encouragement was not
needed by a section commanded by the First World War
veteran, Jack Pender, an armourer sergeant attached to 22
Battalion. Pender, with his corporal, Hosking,20 had recently
been mounting Browning machine guns out of aircraft in various
other battalion positions. His section covered paratroops falling
twenty-five yards along the front. Very few of them landed
alive. But two automatic weapons, set up in a blind spot, gave
trouble all day.

Satisfied that the company's western front was holding well,
Lieutenant Clapham, this time accompanied by Sergeant
Charlie Flashoff, next set off to the east, to Corporal Moore's21
section, on the right flank near the sea and forward of Company Headquarters. Clapham and Flashoff were wounded and
incapacitated by grenades. Moore's post held out, and so did
another strongpoint by the beach commanded by Corporal
Hosie.22 Hosie's men had an anxious time when, about 4 p.m.,
a large party of Germans marched down by the beach towards
them, ‘but a three-inch mortar [actually a 75 millimetre French
field gun of C Troop 27 Battery] landed about six bombs right
smack on top of them, and what was left took cover in a house
on the beach.’ The seaward posts kept survivors pinned down
until dark.

Padre Hurst and a group of ‘cooks and bottlewashers’, manning a small defensive position and soon using up the few rounds
of ammunition they possessed, were joined by Jack Pender, who
ducked back to his armoury and returned with a bucket of
bullets. ‘They kept us going till we moved out. Also with his
help we got a German field piece going and he cleaned up a
machine gun nest in a cottage—that was our greatest triumph.’
The field gun fired again at dusk.

The afternoon seems to have been relatively quiet for Headquarters Company. Twice during the day Private Fellows
prowled around Pirgos quite freely, once filling his tin hat with
eggs ‘and dropped the lot when a Jerry fired, missing my ear
by about 1 ½ inches', and once ‘finding two of our privates in
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sole possession of the church, Arthur (“Wog”) Alexander23 and
Frank Mence,24 who drank the holy water and complained
about tadpoles.’ After an anxious morning the company commander, Lieutenant Beaven, seems to have remained confident.
Beaven, his telephone wires cut, his signallers prevented by fire
at 10.30 a.m. from further attempts to contact Battalion Headquarters by visual methods, had been in touch but once with
the outside world. A cool and resourceful runner, Frank Wan25
(his companion signaller, Bloomfield,26 dead),27 had come from
one and a half miles away to report that Wadey's platoon at
the AMES was not in contact with enemy troops. That was all.
Beaven sent runners to Battalion Headquarters and to B Company. None returned. The day dragged through in complete
isolation. Three hours before sunset Beaven wrote this concise
report and gave it to the indefatigable Wan, who was captured
but hid and preserved the report in his boot until the war ended:

Paratroops landed East, South, and West of Coy area at approx
0745 hrs today. Strength estimated 250. On our NE front 2 enemy
snipers left. Unfinished square red roof house south of sig terminal
housing enemy MG plus 2 snipers. We have a small field gun plus
12 rounds manned by Aussies. Mr. Clapham's two fwd and two
back secs OK. No word of Matheson's pl except Cpl Hall and
Cowling.

Troops in HQ area OK.

Mr Wadey reports all quiet. No observation of enemy paratroops who landed approx 5 mls south of his position.

At dusk the enemy began collecting and calling the roll
where Matheson's forward post had been. Forming a gun crew
and manning the small field gun, Pender, Fraser and Hosking
fired at point-blank range against the assembly point. ‘That
quietened them down quite a bit,’ said Pender. They were as
cheeky as hell, shouting out to each other and giving orders,
but the field gun quietened them down except that orders
turned to squeals and yells, which was very good.’

After dark a party of five went out to find that B Company
had gone. Beaven checked for himself, found this true, but
being reluctant to leave, held on until towards 2 a.m., when a
party from 28 (Maori) Battalion passed through towards the
airfield and returned in about half an hour. This sent Headquarters Company on the move too. In the night as the withdrawal began the captured German field gun got its own back
with the last shot it would ever fire for 22 Battalion. Somebody
stumbled against and fired the gun. The recoiling piece smashed
into a man who cried: ‘My bloody leg is gone!’ Taking their
four wounded with them (there were also three dead, apart
from Matheson's platoon), Headquarters Company left Pirgos.

Kennedy29 and Wallace30 had some trouble in getting volunteers to help the wounded: ‘however several Aussies, probably
ack-ack gunners, did a grand job.’ Charlie Flashoff, sorely
wounded, lay on the stretcher; Barney Clapham, supported
with a comrade on either side, struggled along. Another wounded man was taken in pick-a-back relays. Unhappily, somewhere
about dawn, they ran into German light automatic fire. Ordered
by someone to leave stretcher cases, Kennedy and Wallace
joined others in the party and headed towards 23 Battalion
area. Pirgos was handed over to the enemy, ‘why,’ writes
Private Fellows, ‘I have never been able to find out. At no time
during the night or day had Pirgos been occupied by the
Jerries. A few had come through and a few stayed, but only
the dead ones.’

C Company (Captain Johnson31) had a strength of just over
100, including signallers and stretcher-bearers, seven Brens,
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six Browning machine guns ‘borrowed’ from unserviceable
RAF planes, nine tommy guns, and no mortars. Thirteen
Platoon (Sergeant Crawford32), verging on to the beach, covered the northern end of the airfield; 15 Platoon (Lieutenant
Sinclair33), facing the riverbed and the bridge, held the western
end and was to halt any attack coming across the almost dry
riverbed; 14 Platoon (Lieutenant Donald) and Company Headquarters, by the southern end of the airfield, would hold any
attack coming from inland. A counter-attack by 23 Battalion
was expected. In C Company's area there was one serious weakness: a large number (about 370) of Air Force, Fleet Air Arm
and Naval men (MNBDO34 gunners), despite (it should be
remembered) repeated requests by Johnson and Andrew, did
not come under 22 Battalion's command. They retained their
independence almost to the point of absurdity; even the current password differed among the three groups. Furthermore,
not one serviceable Allied aircraft now remained in Crete.
Many a soldier still wonders why this unwieldy group was not
briskly cleared out of the way and the airfield destroyed.35

All sections, amply stocked with ammunition, were well dug
in in partly covered slit trenches, two or three men to each
trench. Mines were laid, but on strict orders from Force Headquarters were never primed because they might have blown
up friendly Greeks. There was another weakness: at the south-west corner of C Company's position, where this company
ended and D Company began near the concrete and wood
bridge crossing the Tavronitis River, the RAF had its tented
camp. The camp and the large number of airmen about it
made it impossible for 15 Platoon to tie up thoroughly with
the northern platoon of D Company: ‘one good defence line
would have run straight through the officers' mess—unthinkable!’ Straight through this weak spot the Germans came.

The breakfast-time bombing, raising a sudden, blinding dust-cloud round C Company's positions, killed five men and
page 49
wounded one in 14 Platoon and Company Headquarters close
by. The dust hid the arrival of the first gliders: Company Headquarters saw no gliders at all. When the air cleared, men looking east saw the blue-grey uniformed, swaying paratroops landing round Pirgos (Lieutenant Beaven's area), and plenty more
were coming down to the west, over the riverbed, from about
800 yards south of 15 Platoon up to the river mouth and even,
fatally, into the sea itself.

Almost simultaneously an attack began from the riverbed
against the twenty-three men of 15 Platoon. Shingle banks running north and south gave good cover. These glider troops
directly in front of the platoon developed increasingly heavy
fire. But the platoon, stoutly resisting, held on, halting an attack
after the Germans are said to have taken the anti-aircraft guns
in front of the platoon. ‘These guns lacked certain parts and
did not fire a shot,’ says Lieutenant Sinclair.36
‘The parts were
to have arrived days before the battle. Crews didn't accept our
suggestion to prepare positions near ours, and only two survived
the blitz. These two joined Lance-Sergeant Vallis37 in his pit.’
The sergeant accepted a helping hand with a Browning automatic salvaged from a plane and mounted on bits and pieces
of aircraft. The sights were a conglomeration of soap, chewing
gum and screws. With unlimited ammunition Vallis fired this
gun until it was white hot—and then still kept on firing.

Next the Germans, having been checked on the front, swung
slightly to attack on the northern end of 15 Platoon (Corporal
Haycock's38 section), aiming towards the western section of 13
Platoon near the beach.

The one phone link between C Company and Battalion
Headquarters was out—bombing had cut the telephone wires.
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Signals for assistance in an emergency had been discussed (15
Platoon once had considered hanging a white or coloured cloth
on a tree, and other men in the battalion remember vague
suggestions of waving copies of the Weekly News), but none of
these rather futile arrangements was made final, and perhaps
just as well.

So from now on messages had to be sent by runner. At 10 a.m.
Captain Johnson, believing the enemy was boring through the
north flank of 15 Platoon to 13 Platoon, unsuccessfully sought
permission to counter-attack with the two I tanks, which were
dug in and camouflaged between 14 Platoon and Battalion
Headquarters. These carefully hidden tanks, Colonel Andrew's
trump card, were to be used only as a last resort. Unaided,
therefore, the two northern platoons held this attack.

While the northern enemy party opened its at first unavailing attack against Corporal Haycock's area to the south, a far
more formidable party, leaping and firing from behind one
protecting pylon to the next, had crossed the riverbed and
seized intact the concrete and wood bridge over the Tavronitis.
The first crack in Maleme's defences was now being made.
About 11 a.m. the enemy began his first attempt to drive a
wedge between C and D Companies in a thrust on Battalion
Headquarters. He was now in the vulnerable RAF camp, a
cat among pigeons, and 15 Platoon, pinned to its positions,
was now under fire from south, west and north. ‘Yet,’ says
Sinclair, ‘with plenty of good targets and an interesting attack,
we were not unduly worried. We seemed to be holding our
own, so we just hung on and hoped. New uninitiated troops
do not know much fear.’

The German spearhead, planting parties by the camp to fire
across the airfield towards 13 Platoon by the sea (a long way,
but movement on the opposite side of the airfield was clearly
visible), moved on towards Battalion Headquarters, on Point
107. In front of the enemy, making matters worse, went unarmed airmen, either demoralised and fleeing or being driven
deliberately as a screen. As the Germans, with the airmen in
front of them, neared Battalion Headquarters, Captain Johnson
sent Lance-Sergeant Keith Ford39 (14 Platoon) and his section
across to help. Colonel Andrew sent them back with the words:
‘You look after your own backyard—I'll look after mine.’

After returning to Captain Johnson, Sergeant Ford and two
men were sent out once more, across the angry airfield to 13
Platoon. They used what cover they could find in approaching
the eastern edge of the landing strip where it was narrowest,
then ‘ran like hell’. One man, Private Porter,40 was lost
on the way. Thirteen Platoon was to take a more active
role by joining and supporting the hard-pressed 15 Platoon,
still holding out in the middle section and at Platoon Headquarters. But the enemy (near the river mouth on the northern-most positions of 15 Platoon), firing heavily across the airfield
towards the sea, made any such move impossible. Johnson could
not check why no advance was succeeding. He could see fire
from the RAF camp area, but not that from the river mouth.
By this time, noon, Lieutenant Sinclair (15 Platoon) had fainted
through lack of blood, and his batman, Jim Farrington,41 had
been shot through the head. Although hit through the neck,
Sinclair had kept going for an hour, trying unsuccessfully with
tracer and incendiary bullets to ignite a petrol dump alongside
a stack of RAF bombs.

Near Sinclair a soldier had given his life in one of the most
gallant acts in the history of the battalion. When a grenade
landed in his trench, Lance-Corporal Mehaffey42 unhesitatingly
flung his helmet over it and then jumped on it in an attempt
to save the lives of his two comrades. Both of his feet were
blown off and he died soon after. Mehaffey was recommended
for a posthumous Victoria Cross. ‘His behaviour and gallantry
throughout the entire scrap until his final act of sacrifice was
indeed of a high order,’ wrote Captain Johnson.

Before continuing the company story, here is a fragment from
13 Platoon. Forbes-Faulkner43 had the north-west section of
13 Platoon (that is, closest to 15 Platoon), with his headquarters
in the small chapel. The field of fire was to cover a landing by
sea. He writes: ‘In checking with the Aussie Bofors crews, their
page 52
password and ours was not the same, nor did either coincide
with the Fleet Air Arm…. On the morning of the invasion
the Aussie Bofors gun did not fire a shot, I don't know the reason
why. We were a fair distance from most of the activity, and the
first intimation that we had that they were close to us was when
we saw a Hun hop into the Bofors pit and cover the gun with
a Swastika flag. Joe Hamlin44 shot him as he came out.’ The
westerly half of the section held their own at first; later in the
day they were taken prisoner and marched off. The rest of the
section held out in their pits, getting ‘a few more as they moved
towards the chapel, probably thinking it was defended, but
from our position we nicely enfiladed them at about 25 to 50
yards.’

About 2 p.m. a spirited lieutenant from an English light anti-aircraft battery led eight men (two ‘bomb happy’), survivors
from his troop of Bofors guns by the south-east edge of the
airfield, into Company Headquarters. They volunteered to join
C Company as riflemen and were armed. Captain Johnson
carries on the story:

‘At 3 p.m. [Johnson is two hours out: the attack began just
after 5 p.m.] the long and eagerly awaited order to counter
attack with support of the two tanks arrived from Battalion
Headquarters. I had discussed with the tank troop commander
the day before just how we would work together. The troop commander, believing the Germans would have no anti-tank weapons capable of hurting a Matilda, feared nothing except enemy
soldiers on top of his tanks. He asked that his tanks should be
kept sprayed with small-arms fire. I asked how we on foot would
communicate with the tank. He told me to press a bell at the
back of the tank, and the tank commander would open the
turret and talk. When the counter attack started, contact was
attempted with the tank crews. Nobody answered the bell.
[Throughout the entire war, no tank man ever seemed to answer the bell, and the exposed infantryman had to hammer
vigorously on the tank with rifle, tommy gun, or metal helmet
before the turret would open suspiciously.] Lieutenant Donald
commanded the attackers on foot: 14 Platoon (about 12 below
strength) was organised as two sections with a third section of
page 53
gunner volunteers. The tanks left their concealed positions at
3.15 p.m. [5.15 p.m.] and moved west past Company Headquarters along the road towards the river in single file about
30 yards apart. The first tank proceeded up to the river, firing
as it went, until it stopped in the riverbed.’

Sinclair, regaining consciousness for most of the afternoon,
saw the tank ‘go down under the big bridge and out a little
further west where it came to a halt. The place was seething
with enemy plainly visible in the long grass. They seemed uncertain what to do.’

Johnson continues: ‘The tank went no further. Apparently
the turret had jammed. The crew surrendered.’ [This comment
is based on a report given Johnson by Corporal ‘Bob’ Smith,45
who was subsequently a prisoner of war employed on the airfield before escaping to Egypt. Sinclair has another version:
some sort of anti-tank rifle burst through to the engine, the crew
at pistol point were forced to service the damaged part but
instead ruined it permanently. ‘From where I was,’ Sinclair
goes on, ‘I thought this business with the tank and the men
was futile. Of course I could see more perhaps of the opposition
lying in wait.’

‘The second tank turned about before reaching the bridge
and came back past Company Headquarters on the Maleme
road,’ says Johnson. ‘It had not fired a shot. Bellringing was
unavailing. When the second tank turned 14 Platoon was under
withering fire from the front and southern flank. Their position
was hopeless. Those who were able to withdrew, using the lee
side of the tank for shelter. Donald, himself wounded, led only
eight or nine men back, most of them wounded, from this brave
but disastrous counter attack. The English officer (unfortunately I never learned his name) was killed in this attack after
pleading with me to let him take part and lead a section.’

It was obvious now that the Germans were well consolidated
—they did not waste time digging in, nor had they need to.
Johnson sent a runner to Colonel Andrew with the disturbing
news that the counter-attack had failed. Fifteen Platoon46 and
page 54
the western section of 13 Platoon seemed to have been overcome; 14 Platoon was practically finished, and the cooks, stretcher-bearers, and Company Headquarters staff alone could not
hold the inland perimeter of the airfield for long. The company
would probably hold out until dark, but reinforcements would
be needed then. The CO replied in his last message to get
through to Johnson on 20 May: Hold on at all costs.’

Speaking of his men, Johnson pays a tribute to Company
Quartermaster-Sergeant Vaughan,47 who worked untiringly to
supply food and water, and says: ‘The surviving men were in excellent heart in spite of their losses. They had Not had enough.
They were first rate in every particular way and were as aggressive as when action was first joined.’ He also speaks movingly
of the performance this day of all the men in his company,
mainly from Hawke's Bay and Gisborne: ‘I'll never know men
like them again.’

Late in the afternoon two Ju52s attempted to land on the
airfield, but the mauled company was by no means carrion
yet. All weapons opened up and the planes, spitting back small-arms fire, swung out to sea.

From after dark until midnight German patrols were active
in the neighbourhood. In the night no C Company patrols
could contact Battalion Headquarters. Its old area was now
found to be occupied by Germans, a severe shock indeed.
Simultaneously (and here is another instance where the fate
of the airfield hung delicately in the balance), a company 114
strong from 28 (Maori) Battalion came confidently right to the
eastern edge of the airfield and failed by a furlong or so to
contact C Company. This would be bitter news to C Company
men when they heard some days (or, in some cases, several
years) later of the Maoris' thrust. The company now believes
the Maoris came to within but 200 yards of Company Headquarters and 14 Platoon, but halted by the knocked-out Bofors
guns, and hearing only the shouts and tramplings of noisy
German patrols, concluded that the airfield had fallen and
pulled back. The position of Company Headquarters and 14
Platoon was marked clearly on maps in the hands of other battalions and even as far back as Creforce Headquarters. Had the
Maoris made contact, C Company is confident that with Maori
reinforcements it would have held out all next day (21 May),
page 55
still denying the airfield to the enemy, despite the certainty of
heavy casualties. In that event, the story of Maleme would have
changed with a vengeance.

For three hours after midnight patrols failed to find A, B and
D Companies. A man conspicuous for his one-man patrol activities was Peter Butler,48 over from Headquarters Company; his
explorations were of paramount importance and greatly helped
the evacuation from the airfield. Reluctantly convinced that
no support was coming, now that the battalion apparently was
gone, and believing that his few remaining men on the inland
side of the airfield could not withstand the inevitable dawn
attack, Johnson, after conferring with Donald, decided to withdraw at 4.30 a.m. on 21 May. The lateness of the time is worth
remembering: dawn was approaching. Johnson and his company had stuck to their posts nobly: their withdrawal from the
fateful airfield was a bitter reward for their day of steadfast
defiance. A runner went to tell 13 Platoon and returned saying
the place was bare.49 Every man removed his boots and hung
them round his neck. Critically wounded men were made as
comfortable as possible and left with food and water. The southern wire round 14 Platoon's defences was cut and, in single file,
the wounded interspersed here and there, they set off. One
man was practically carried, stooped over the back of a friend;
another crawled all the way to 21 Battalion on his hands and
knees. No stretchers were available; the party could not have
carried them in any case, for they had to be prepared to fight
their way out. They50 went past the snoring Germans to the
page 56
right, through the vineyards separating C Company from A
Company, up to A Company's deserted headquarters, on to the
road, up the hill past a grounded and ghostly glider until, after
dawn, they reached a wood near 21 Battalion's positions. As
they fell dead-tired under the trees, German planes began the
morning hate.

D Company (Captain Campbell) had about 70 men, supported by two machine guns of 27 Battalion on makeshift mountings,
an uncertain number of Bren and tommy guns, and no mortars.
The right boundary included the bridge over the Tavronitis
River. Near here 18 Platoon (Sergeant Sargeson) was placed;
17 Platoon (Lieutenant Jim Craig51) was next, with 16 Platoon
(Lance-Sergeant Freeman52) further inland on higher ground
on the company's left flank. The last two platoons looked down
on to the riverbed and across to flat ground on the other side.
About a quarter of a mile south was an outpost, a platoon from
21 Battalion.

As the platoons were out of touch with each other during
the day, their experiences will be treated in turn.

The most northerly platoon in D Company, 18 Platoon, 30-
odd strong in Greece and wasted to only twenty-two by 20
May, was extraordinarily thin on its vital ground. Throughout
20 May Sergeant Sargeson had no contact whatsoever with
C Company (on the airfield, on the platoon's right flank) or
even with his company's remaining two platoons.

On the point of breakfast-time ‘it suddenly became expedient
to keep your head down while our slit trenches concertina-ed
in and out under the grandfather of all blitzes.’ Hard on this,
Sargeson recollects, ‘the planes were literally wing-tip to wing-tip and all disgorging a skyful of multi-coloured parachutes.
… I remember being fascinated by the spectacle and remarking to Corporal Bob Boyd53 who was beside me: “Look
at that Bob, you'll never see another sight like that as long as
page 57
you live”—and Bob's reply, eminently practical and much
more useful to the cause as he picked up his rifle, “Yes, and
if we don't shoot a few of the b—s we won't live too bloody
long.” ‘

Any scattered paratroops who had overshot their intended
mark west of the river to land near 18 Platoon's positions were
dealt with; but detachments from the great bulk of the invaders,
landing well out of range, formed up as the day grew older and
attacked in orthodox fashion as well-equipped infantry. Eighteen Platoon's two-man picket on the bridge (Smale54 and
Barrett55), according to plan fell back towards a position near
the RAF cookhouse to cover the bridge from there with a Boys
anti-tank rifle which Arthur Holley56 had devotedly lugged out
of Greece. Barrett was killed and Smale soon wounded and
later captured, and this tenuous grip on the highly important
bridge was almost immediately lost. Corporal Neil Wakelin's57
group obviously could do nothing about the bridge, under
which, protected by pylons, an enemy machine gun and mortar
(subsequently identified by a dud round) promptly took post
and offensive action, pinning down and pounding the handful
of defenders in the two nearest pits (Gillice's58 and Minton's59).
Accordingly, by mid-morning, with the noise of battle unabated,
Platoon Headquarters saw the first minute fall in the avalanche
which, starting at Maleme, would sweep the British from Crete:
through the dust some 250 yards away a few of these men were
being shepherded through the wire and dazedly gesticulating
back not to fire. One of these captives, Arthur Holley, writes
of their severe bombing, himself being blown up with a grenade,
and of casualties widespread among his companions.

Sargeson, checking up, found Wakelin ‘all right, and agreed
that his position and mine were now the front line. We knew
page 58
nothing of C Company. Warfare continued spasmodically with
a fair bit of activity directed at us from the M.G. and mortar
behind the bridge. However, no direct frontal assault was made
and we sat tight. If the enemy had realised how thin we were
I don't doubt he would have dug us out but we parried shot
for shot and I suppose he was guessing—or else was busy with
C Company so that he could later outflank us.’

In the late afternoon, expecting an evening assault on what
now was clearly the left flank of the whole airfield position, the
sergeant went back (‘encountering no one except carnage’) to
Company Headquarters, to be told by Captain Campbell that
reinforcements were nil. The platoon had in fact received reinforcements at the beginning of the bombing: fourteen RAF
ground crew, as arranged. These fourteen men, willing enough
to be sure, were of no use, quite untrained as they were for any
infantry task and hopelessly ill equipped, with no rifles and
perhaps a few. 38 pistols. All clad in deceptive blue, they were
hastily camouflaged by New Zealand greatcoats in the boiling
sun. Nearly all were wearing light shoes which were soon in
ribbons.

Returning to his platoon and learning that Wakelin's post
had been in close action, Sargeson investigated with Corporal
Boyd. Two survivors overlooked in their hole (Nickson60 and
Velvin61) told how, surprised from behind, Wakelin and Doole62
had been led down to the canal and apparently tommy-gunned. When the four got back to Platoon Headquarters, darkness
was approaching. Sargeson ‘decided that I could not prevent
infiltration in the dark and that rightly or wrongly, I would
not sit out on a spur but would withdraw my few men and
consolidate with the rest of the company. And believe me we
literally tiptoed away into the night and heard quite clearly
the enemy moving in behind us (the Germans' habit of calling
to one another in the dark advertised their presence).’

They ‘were a little disturbed’ to find the rest of the company
had also withdrawn a short distance, and Captain Campbell
and Company Sergeant-Major Fowler, with no information
on the situation generally, were about to send a two-man patrol
to Battalion Headquarters.

While watching the gliders come in 17 Platoon saw seventeen
land along the dry riverbed of the Tavronitis. The first one
grounded on the hillside between positions occupied by Captain
Campbell and Lieutenant Craig. At least five of the occupants
were killed or wounded, and Craig with his batman, Bert
Slade,63 were returning to their position with two unwanted
prisoners when ‘a Jerry machine gun opened up and settled the
problem for me, missing both Slade and myself but copping
the two prisoners dead centre.’ Craig and Slade felt sure they
had cleaned up the occupants of the glider, but the balance
(four) were glimpsed making for the ridge just above them and
disappeared in the direction of the coast gun. The full crew of
a glider, hidden by a slight promontory, advanced together
towards Allan Dunn's64 section, but the section posts of Tom
Walsh65 and Kettle66 (the latter receiving ‘marvellous assistance
from a couple of Air Force chaps [who] were great shots and
knew no fear’) got the lot. ‘Our firearms were most inadequate,’
comments Kettle. ‘My section was issued with a Bren gun a
few days before the blitz, with instructions not to fire indiscriminately with it as it was necessary to conserve ammo. We
obeyed this instruction most explicitly unfortunately, for it was
discovered upon attempting our first burst at the enemy that
the gun was without a firing pin.’ They gathered enemy equipment, including a spandau, which gave good service until ammunition ran out at 12.30 p.m. Barney Wicksteed did good
work as a sniper.

Tom Walsh's section, with one trench blown in by a bomb,
was fully occupied in firing at its front, the riverbed, ‘but,’
says Danny Gower,67 ‘Tom Walsh suddenly turned round with
his tommygun and dropped three Germans suddenly behind
us, the three enemy coming right out of the olive groves. We
took turns then facing front and rear, but after a while there was
not much doing.’ Sergeant Forbes-Faulkner68 saw across the
riverbed Greek civilians being used methodically ‘during the
day as cover while the Jerries organised themselves.’

As far as 17 Platoon is concerned, there seems to have
been only one casualty; scattered paratroops (about twenty
fell in the platoon area) had been quickly knocked out; the
positions apparently held firmly all day, but movement in
the afternoon brought fierce and most accurate fire from across
the riverbed. ‘No. 17 Pln had a fairly easy time of it most of
the day,’ writes Jim Craig. ‘As my position gave me a clear
view of all my positions and I was expecting at any time to
receive orders to counterattack, I did not deem it advisable to
stray very far from my Platoon H.Q. where I could be contacted by Coy. Cmdr. or Bn. The sections seemed to be O.K.
and had quite capable section commanders and I kept in contact with them by runner, however I now feel that on looking
back I should have perhaps taken matters into my own hands,
as we had cleaned out what enemy had come our way, in the
nature of Paratroops and Gliders, and made a counter attack
to retrieve No. 18's lost position, but it would have left our own
position and the right flank of 16 Pln wide open.’ About 6 p.m.
(according to Pat Thomas69) a runner began visiting sections
with an instruction to move back to Company Headquarters
in groups of two or three, for the enemy had the area covered
with machine guns.

On the left flank of D Company, 16 Platoon held positions
on the hillside overlooking the dry riverbed, with a good field
of fire but out of sight of the rest of the company. The platoon
commander was Sergeant Vince Freeman. The pounding from
the air was severe; there were bomb holes everywhere, but not
page 61
one casualty. ‘There was not a tree standing in my area and
our trenches were half filled in,’ writes Corporal Pemberton.70
‘“Windy” Mills71 had a Boys anti-tank rifle tied up in an olive
tree,’ recalls Harry Wigley.72 ‘He had ideas of shooting at troop-carrying planes. I don't think that gun was ever found, nor
the tree it was tied to.’

Stray paratroops (their chief object apparently was keeping
the riverbed defenders occupied while the main force beyond
landed and organised) soon were cleaned up by 16 Platoon,
which dealt as well with two stray gliders, and also, the platoon
fears, with several blue-dressed RAF men (‘our big worry’)
escaping into the hills. A furiously swearing Private Gilbert,73
his Bren full of dirt from the bombing, had to take it down, clean
it, and assemble it before opening up with marked effect on
gliders and their occupants in the riverbed. But every time the
gun fired it sent up a cloud of dust which drew heavy machinegun fire and mortaring from the enemy quickly grouping across
the river. Two guns from 27 (MG) Battalion gave a spirited
performance until ammunition ran low in the afternoon. A
wounded machine-gun officer (Second-Lieutenant Brant74) was
given first aid in Sergeant Freeman's pit: ‘he was offended because I pulled his identity discs out to check up just who was
behind me. Wanted to know if I thought he was a Jerry.’

Apart from bursts of counter-fire from across the river, the rest
of the morning for 16 Platoon passed ‘rather quietly…. In the
afternoon there were no targets offering … nothing of interest’; it was ‘a reasonably quiet day and [the platoon] handled
what there was around.’ Germans had worked up to under the
riverbank in front of the platoon but came no further, content
to call out in English, ‘Come down here, Comrade’. ‘They
desisted in this when someone invited them to stick their—
square heads above the bank and he'd give them Comrades.’

‘That night,’ writes Pemberton, who was in charge of half
page 62
of the platoon, ‘16 Platoon was sitting very snug and in control
of the position, and in the early morning I was surprised when
Tom Campbell contacted me and said we were moving out
as we could not contact the rest of the Battalion.’ The platoon
suffered but one casualty all day: Private Simpson,75 shot in
the foot. ‘We had hoped that the 21 Battalion would have been
allowed to have come down towards [16 Pl] as we were undoubtedly undermanned, and in a real manpowered charge
early in day could have swung the tide,’ summed up Sergeant
Freeman.

At Company Headquarters some men were redistributed into
section posts in the immediate area. Here Captain Campbell's
exasperating day from sunrise to dusk (at 8 a.m. his signals
post had a direct hit from a bomb) was by no means over: the
hardest decision would soon face him. Now, after dark, Sergeant-Major Fowler76 and another soldier picked their way to
Battalion Headquarters. ‘It was evacuated, all right. But where
had they gone?’ Campbell continues: ‘From a conference held
before the action there was the plan that we would congregate
south if we lost the drome.77 Then I thought that my company
position might be wanted as a sort of pivot round which a
counter attack could swing, especially if the battalion had
pulled back to the south. I took stock of wounded nearby.
They knew nothing of a counter attack. I decided to pull out.
It was then 3 a.m.’

The situation among perplexed, weary, hungry and thirsty
page 63
men was not improved by someone suddenly shouting, ‘Every
man for himself!’, for morale had fallen flat with the news that
the battalion had gone. Remnants of 18 Platoon with Sergeant
Sargeson went far south on a hazardous expedition. Some of
17 Platoon with Lieutenant Craig began making south along
the riverbank, were blocked, moved towards Point 107, and
at sunrise were surrounded and captured. Company Headquarters, 16 Platoon and various strays followed Captain
Campbell along a track running due east, skirted a party of
sleeping Germans, met Captain Hanton and other mystified
groups from the battalion, and at daybreak were nearing the
protection of 5 Brigade's lines higher in the hills.

A Company (Captain Hanton and Lieutenants Fell78 and
McAra79; exact strength and weapons unknown), with the task
of all-round defence, held its fire until parachutists were about
100 feet from the ground. Twenty-two Germans who landed
alive in A Company's area were accounted for. Hanton, moving
about, ‘saw dozens of corpses on the ground or in the trees….
During the lulls the men grabbed any German stores that landed
near them. There were canisters of gear, food, motor cycles and
even warm coffee from Hun flasks. The detailed organisation
of the force amazed us at the time; we had not realised that
so much care could be taken to win a battle.’

After breakfast, which had been delayed in the blitz, Lance-
Corporal Chittenden and Bill Croft80 had just returned to
their pit near the coast gun when, unknown to them, the four
German survivors from the glider came over the ridge. As
Chittenden and Croft reached their trench Croft's ‘first reaction was to ask for a smoke,’ says Chittenden. ‘Producing
tobacco I was passing some to [Croft] when I noticed his hands
slowly rising and a look of alarm on his face. Looking upwards
I was soon aware of the cause. Four Germans, tommyguns in
page 64
hand, were standing at the end of the trench beckoning to us
to get out.’ Croft, rising, received a full and fatal burst; Chittenden next knew that he was grappling with the German leader,
rolling over and over, then was stunned by a heavy blow (a
shot, or shots). Soon recovering, he walked off for first aid,
and but for his wounds would have convinced nobody that
four Germans were in the immediate vicinity. What happened
to these four Germans is not known. Company Sergeant-Major
Harry Strickland81 ‘was in our Company Headquarters area,
not a German in sight, there was a bang, I was on the deck
[a stretcher case] wondering what the hell had happened.’
Then along the ridge Lance-Sergeant McWhinnie,82 with two
or three others, was bailed up, disarmed, and driven ahead
until rescued, probably by one of the parties sent out from
Battalion Headquarters.

The next excitement came when Germans from the captured
RAF camp began moving towards Point 107: there seem to
have been two such sallies within two hours, each time with
RAF men in front of them. These men, some with their hands
up and crying ‘Don't shoot! Don't shoot!’ probably were being
used deliberately as a screen. Both parties did not get far, for
each time they were dealt with by men from A Company and
Battalion Headquarters. The first skirmish was over quickly,
and here Regimental Sergeant-Major Purnell83 was killed. The
second advance, beginning about 11 a.m. with a larger screen
of RAF men, also ended when the Germans behind the screen
came under fire.

‘From then on, there was the odd firing and movements from
below [from the airfield and environs] but nothing of vital importance as far as we were concerned as a company,’ says
Hanton. ‘Later on I tried to see how Fell and McAra were
getting on in their platoon positions to the south. Neither a
runner, nor myself later, succeeded in getting through. About
lunchtime the CSM, Strickland, was shot through the stomach.
… For the rest of the day, a comparatively quiet time. I
page 65
don't recall being worried at all over the company's position
and casualties.’

At 5 p.m. orders reached Company Headquarters that reserve companies of 23 and 28 Battalions would arrive by 9 p.m.,
and at that time the company was to pull back to the RAP
ridge, and further back at midnight. Orders would come about
the second move. ‘Was amazed to hear of it,’ wrote Hanton.
‘Things were not bad with me and T. Campbell whom I met
next morning did not go out of his way to suggest that he was
in hot water exactly.’

After dark A Company moved a little eastward to the RAP
ridge. A runner took news of this move to Fell and McAra,
and possibly during this move Fell, silhouetted against the skyline, was killed. The company stayed at this RAP ridge until
the early hours of the morning. From there runners had been
sent out on both flanks, north and south, to contact C and B
Companies. Both returned to say they had gone quite a distance without meeting anybody. ‘All the time I had the gnawing
feeling that I was all on my own,’ says Hanton. ‘I got the troops
that were left, there might have been 50, and began marching
down the RAP road, south-west, away from the coast,’ to meet,
greatly to their relief, Campbell and a party of D Company
men. After hiding in a gully for most of the next day, the united
party went on and reached a new line being formed by 21 and
23 Battalions.

At Battalion Headquarters Colonel Andrew considered the
blitz worse than the 1914-18 artillery barrages: ‘I do not wish
to experience another one like it.’ He was wounded slightly:
‘a wee piece of bomb that stuck in above the temple, and when
I pulled it out it was bloody hot and I bled a bit.’ A man nearby
heard the angry Colonel exclaim: ‘We'll go out and get these
b—s when the bombing stops.’ In the smoking and dusty
aftermath no paratroops landed between Point 107 and the
two ends of the airfield, but several gliders did, between Battalion Headquarters and Headquarters Company, coming down
among dust curtains still hanging from the bombing. No glider
troops fired on Battalion Headquarters, and the paratroops
were too far away. For fifteen minutes pot-shots were taken at
an enemy group about 700 yards away, near a dry watercourse
page 66
towards Pirgos village. Two gliders were within 200 yards of
Battalion Headquarters; their crews lay hidden and doggo
among the plentiful cover of vines until the late afternoon.

An hour after the landing the erratic No. 18 wireless set was
working again, and at 10 a.m. reported to Brigade the landing
of hundreds of paratroops in the riverbed and further west.
‘It was now so quiet that we [Battalion Headquarters] were
walking round freely,’ records Major Leggat, who goes further,
saying he ‘was a bit bored from the lack of movement. Things
were a bit quiet round Bn Hq and I went up to the top of the
hill where I could hear a few shots.’

These shots came from a gunner enterprise. On the hill just
above the two 4-inch coast guns, Lieutenant Williams84 of 27
Battery had an observation post which soon became useless for
observing and directing fire when communications failed. By
10 a.m. the Germans were into the RAF camp, and soon a few
had moved on into a clump of olive trees containing the RAF's
RAP. From this grove the first advance (a tentative affair) began probing up the lower slopes of Point 107 in an area apparently not covered by A Company. Williams and another artillery officer, Lieutenant Cade,85 quickly grouped together
straggling British gunners86 and airmen (one defensive position
was along a stone wall), sent a runner to Colonel Andrew for aid,
and then prepared a bayonet attack. Some men stuck knives on
their rifles. ‘Very soon a large party (30 to 40) appeared
variously uniformed, and partly uniformed men with hands
above their heads, many terror-stricken, all yelling and pleading
with us not to shoot (meaning at the enemy) but to let them
come on or they would be shot in the back,’ writes Twigg, who
was ordered on to the hill when the attack began. ‘Among
these men were some of our Bn,’ including the battalion provost
sergeant (few men would wish a provost sergeant such a fate),
page 67
Gordon Dillon, and Sergeant McWhinnie. ‘When any defences were seen the Jerries just took one or two of us and
pushed us ahead onto the defence. The Jerry doing it put a
Luger in your back and just pointed. It was easy to understand,’
writes Dillon. ‘They would keep close behind in case of shooting. It was well planned and with the intention of pushing
into our positions.’ He adds: ‘Some damn good shots picked
the three Jerries off.’

Descriptions from various viewpoints now understandably
enough clash, but clearly, with ‘astonishing ease’ the gunners,
three or four men with Major Leggat, and Twigg with a few
signallers dealt with the very few Germans behind this distressed screen and restored the situation. But the sally had cost
Sergeant-Major Purnell his life. ‘During all this time [from
10 a.m. to at least 11 a.m.] parties of men were moving about
on the aerodrome and the hill, and it was quite impossible to
know who was who; there was a great deal of shouting back
and forth and the ubiquitous adjective was the best countersign,’
noted Lieutenant A. R. Ramsay, of the Fleet Air Arm.

A similar assault occurring perhaps three hours later was
only partially checked, but this time military etiquette was
deliberately flouted. Petty Officer Wheaton (an electrician
working on the airfield) and a RAF man, on capture, were
given a red swastika flag by a German officer, ordered to march
in front of a group of German tommy-gunners, and to shout
to parties to surrender. Flag in hand, the hapless petty officer
was driven forward until, with a sudden dash for liberty, he
landed in a trench where New Zealanders, firing an automatic
weapon, drove back the enemy and rescued the airman, now
badly wounded. As this drive began, a Marine officer came
down from the hill, spoke of ‘a screen of captured RAF men’,
and urged Palmer87 to take his Bren carrier up to the gun
position. ‘We had been told not to move the carriers without
orders from Colonel Andrew,’ Palmer relates. ‘I suggested to
the officer that he got permission from Battalion Headquarters.
Private “Sandy” Booth,88 who was present, offered to gather
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a party of men and take them up to cover the gun position. He
gathered a party of about 20 RAF and Anti-aircraft men telling
them it would be better to fight on the hilltop (Point 107) than
be killed like rats in the olive grove.’ A few followed Booth to the
top of the hill.

Meanwhile, back at Battalion Headquarters, with all telephone wires cut and useless, messages and information came
and went laboriously by runners or patrols who performed
many acts of devotion to duty. The four Bren carriers seem to
have been overlooked for patrol work. The Colonel himself
(and by now some impression should be emerging of the atmosphere and handicaps under which he was working) tried to
get through to Headquarters Company, and later went towards B Company to see the situation there for himself. Brigade
reported over the air that the enemy was landing in New Zealand uniforms—false—but this was at exactly the time when
leaderless groups89 of displaced airmen were milling about
Point 107, another vexation to the commander upon whom
the pressure of events increased mercilessly throughout the day.
No news at all came from Headquarters Company at Pirgos
perhaps at any time a German thrust would come from the
east. At 10.55 a.m. the Colonel asked Brigade by radio if 23
Battalion could contact Headquarters Company. Accordingly,

page 69
17 Platoon of 23 Battalion made towards Pirgos, but did not
reach Headquarters Company, for the latter was firing on all
movement. (Yet it should be remembered that Wan got
through on his first mission.) Unfortunately, Colonel Andrew
was never given any indication that his Pirgos men were still
holding out zealously. In the same message seeking information
about his Headquarters Company he reported that otherwise
‘line was still intact and [the Battalion] were holding everywhere.’

Pressure mounted steadily as the afternoon began and the
drama of the airfield and Point 107 moved towards its climax.
A few minutes after noon Battalion Headquarters wirelessed
Brigade that enemy guns and heavy machine guns were firing
at them from west of the river. In the early afternoon mortaring
and strafing (presumably from the ground) was heavy, some
of A Company were seen beginning to move back beyond Battalion Headquarters, saying that a strong enemy force was
moving up between A and C Companies. (The southern posts
of A Company did not move.) At 2.55 p.m. Battalion Headquarters reported to Brigade that ‘position was fairly serious
as enemy had penetrated into Bn H.Q. area’, and at 3.50 p.m.
‘left flank had given way but position was believed to be in
hand’. Headquarters appealed for news of its HQ Company as
reinforcements were ‘badly needed’. Perhaps it was then that
Andrew asked Hargest for a counter-attack and was told that
23 Battalion was engaged with paratroops (23 Battalion area
was clear by 11.40 a.m., when companies were out hunting
paratroops). So denied support and with no reserves due to the
large area the 22nd covered, Andrew made his last throw, the
two tanks, and to his bitter disappointment watched the attack
fail. At 6.45 p.m. Point 107 was bombed by five planes. Major
Leggat now saw the Luftwaffe resuming close support, for by
now the enemy knew his spearheads had reached the top of the
hill, and planes machine-gunned areas forward of that. Brigade's last recorded message from 22 Battalion (7.25 p.m.)
‘… asked for immediate assistance and reported their casualties as heavy….’

The counter-attack by 23 Battalion, freely discussed before
the invasion, was widely expected, and when it did not come,
the feeling of bewilderment and isolation increased. Apart from
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A and B Companies, nothing was known about the fate of the
rest of the battalion or the brigade. The enemy, growing in
organisation and confidence, challenged movement. Hidden
enemy parties took heart. Practically all news was unreliable,
just rumours. A hitherto most reliable man, suffering great
strain, reported that D Company was wiped out.

‘The morale of Bn. H.Q. officers and men [in the morning]
was good, and I consider up to the standard and far better than
in the latter years of the war,’ writes Twigg. ‘The O.C. and 2 i.c.
showed signs of strain during the day, and I put this down to
lack of news and information concerning their own troops and
the position in general. I am sure that the bombing or their
personal safety did not concern these officers, but the responsibility was great.’

The brigade plan did not seem to be functioning; the CO
had little information; neither wireless appeal nor the distress
flares had brought the counter-attack; the enemy had exploited
to the full the weakness of the defences by the RAF camp, over
which the CO had little control; only A and B Companies
seemed to be left, and these appeared likely to be overwhelmed
with the dawn. Colonel Andrew therefore told Brigadier Hargest
that he might have to withdraw, and he understood the Brigadier to reply: ‘Well, if you must, you must.’ By this—which
may have been about 6 p.m.—Andrew meant a short withdrawal from the top of Point 107; he still intended to deny the
enemy any use of the airfield.

Leggat takes up the tale: ‘Just before dusk [sunset was 7.50
p.m.] McDuff (I think) and I followed the CO to B Coy's HQ.
We went up the road past the glider, which gives some idea of
the quietness of the situation. Here we used Armstrong's slit
trench and blanket and went into a huddle. Crarer90 tells me
the Signaller had still his set with him but was having no luck
in getting through. A company of 23 Bn under Carl Watson91
came through about 9. I took them across the road. McAra
said he would put them in position (he was killed 5 minutes
later).’

The Colonel had decided to withdraw the rest of his battalion to B Company's ridge to anchor a flank and to reorganise.
But on reaching the ridge he ‘found the enemy had pushed
round my flanks further than I had expected, and I had to
make the decision to withdraw to the 21/23 Bn line and this
I did before dawn.’ ‘This decision must have been made about
10.30 p.m.,’ notes Major Leggat. Runners went out with news
of the withdrawal, but only B Company knew of the move.

Leggat went on to Brigade Headquarters by carrier to report
‘that we were officially off Maleme’, and Hargest, asleep and
in pyjamas, ‘was absolutely surprised and unprepared.’ Similarly, when Captain Crarer (B Company) passed at the end of
his company through 21 Battalion, ‘Colonel Allen92 was surprised and totally ignorant that any withdrawal was to take
place.’

The day had opened, and ended, with complete surprises.
Yet the most bitterly surprised would be the four companies,
mauled but still in position below in the darkness, still holding
on and unaware ‘that we were officially off Maleme’.

B Company (Captain Ken Crarer, with Lieutenant Armstrong acting as second-in-command; exact strength and weapons unknown): 10 Platoon (Sergeant Bruce Skeen93) was to
the south, 11 Platoon (Corporal Andrews) to the north, and 12
Platoon (Lieutenant Slade94) to the west. This company's task
was an all-round defence of the area; to tie in with A Company
and to protect two machine guns placed slightly to the north;
to prevent any attack coming over the hill to the west and down
to the airfield. In the last two days the company area had received its share of bombing and strafing. Pilots paid particular
attention to machine-gunning the road.

The parachutists came in in a line running from the north-east of B Company across to the southern area of D Company:
‘As each flight of troop-carriers (3) emptied its load of about
a dozen troops per plane, a fresh flight carried on extending the
line until they were dropping directly over and beyond us. By
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this time the Browning was smoking hot and I was frantically
reloading and spraying the Jerries as they continued the line
to circle the drome.’ They fell thickly around the area where
Slade's platoon was in position, and this platoon seems to have
remained isolated all day.95 When Slade was wounded, Corporal Jurgens96 took command. Andrews's platoon got all but
three of the paratroops who were dropped within 200 yards,
‘and one of my NCOs, L/Cpl. Elliott97 took a couple of men
despite the standing order that no man was to leave his trench
and went down into the valley where several Jerries had landed
among the trees and cleaned them out. Keith Elliott got wounded in the arm and a tommy gun man, Tommy Thompson98
got one through his right leg. [Elliott's excursion probably took
him to within 400 yards of Matheson's platoon at Pirgos.] As
Elliott's venture proved to be the way to handle paratroops I
sent out half the platoon at a time to scour our area and bring
in all the machine guns, pistols, tommy guns and grenades that
the Jerries dropped in containers. There was a container after
every fourth or fifth man.’

A glider ‘sneaked in on us’ and dropped below the road between B and A Companies. Two men with a captured German
machine gun ‘poured belt after belt into the glider’; a sniper
wounded Johnny Adcock99 before he was himself killed.

Crarer says: ‘Apart from a bit of sniping and several prisoners
surrendering, and an occasional drop during the day, the area
remained comparatively quiet—a lot of shooting to the west
where enemy parties were gathering. Communications with A
Company were visual and by liaison. We had a carrier which
had made two trips to Battalion Headquarters by early afternoon. I tried to make contact with Slade's area by sending two
patrols forward, but they were shot up and did not get through.
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[Slade, alone at Platoon Headquarters, was wounded but dealt
valiantly with three Germans with an anti-tank gun. Allan
Holley100 says that from 10 a.m. onwards the hill was clear, and
from early afternoon everything was quiet.] We had good
liaison with Lieutenant McAra (commanding a platoon in A
Company) who early in the day came over saying he'd been
kicked out of his area, but he later on collected stragglers and
before lunch re-established himself in his area.

‘There was no platoon attack, or no organised attack, on B
Company. Casualties, not heavy in the company, would not
have reached ten. [11 Platoon had three lightly wounded men.]
We had all sorts of weapons; all fairly well capable of looking
after ourselves. Any runners coming to our area before midnight would have found us at home.’

Australian and English stragglers from the airfield were
‘sorted into some sort of shape, organised into sections, given
what enemy equipment they could raise, and that night
organised a complete defence of the perimeter of Armstrong's
and Sergeant Skeen's areas.’

By dusk all four Bren carriers had landed up by B Company's
area. During the morning Privates Jack Weir101 and Maurie
Cowlrick102 volunteered to drive up the road to form a road
block on the right of B Company, and ‘the only firing was at
odd paratroopers.’ Then two more carriers came up. Earlier in
the day the Browning from one had been used for firing on
paratroops in Headquarters Company area; later it was used
to scatter a party of enemy attempting to retrieve a supply
container on the ridge behind Headquarters Company. Although they were right on the road, the carriers were not
strafed because the crews covered them with parachutes. About
8.30 p.m. the fourth carrier (Palmer's) made its second and
final trip up to B Company's area. Weir and Cowlrick were told
that if 23 Battalion support did not come, ‘Maurie and I were
to wait until the last man would tell us he was the last man,
only he didn't.’ The two stayed until nearly daylight. All the
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carriers were put out of action before being abandoned; apparently more or less forgotten, they had served little purpose this
day.

Just after dark Captain Watson, with A Company 23 Battalion, came into B Company's area and was ordered by Colonel
Andrew to take up a covering position in Captain Hanton's
area. He wanted a guide and McAra said: ‘That's my area.
I'll take you in.’

Corporal Andrews writes of his first inkling of the retreat:
‘At ten minutes to eleven that night I received word that I had
to have the platoon ready to move out and clear a village nearby
[half a mile directly south of B Company] and to guard the
Battalion through the village. Up to that time we had no indication that the position was so serious.’

Crarer goes on: ‘Battalion HQ came into our area after dark
and decided to withdraw at midnight. The withdrawal was
OK. We got a message round to Slade's platoon by the shouting
of orders round the chain of posts.’ Colin Armstrong led 11
Platoon (Corporal Andrews) out first, then Jurgens brought
out some of Slade's men. Slade couldn't be moved and was left
with food and water. ‘These chaps came out down the track and
south of 21 Battalion's area. Then out came the last platoon,
Skeen's (No. 10).’ The rearguard in the village saw the remnants of the battalion pass through safely and then followed
along behind: ‘Indeed, every few yards we passed dead paratroops and even then they had begun to stink.’

Thus the battalion withdrew and the invaders of Crete
gained the airfield they had to have to continue the assault.
The chapter of misfortunes and misunderstandings which led
to Colonel Andrew's fateful decision has been related.103 All
next day 5 Brigade sat like a man bemused when the fate of
the invasion of Crete, in the words of German commanders
page 75
concerned, ‘balanced on a knife edge’.104
A counter-attack was in fact mounted on the night of 21-22 May, but it was
too weak and too late. German officers are
told in the course of their basic training that in battle ‘It is
better to do the wrong thing than to do nothing.’

Remnants of 22 Battalion joined the defence line of 21 and
23 Battalions next day. In the late afternoon the last original
22 Battalion post was evacuated: the AMES guarded by Captain Wadey and his well-armed platoon of pioneers. The radar
station, a mile inland from Point 107 and on high ground, two
knolls with a saddle between, covered about half an acre and
contained two RAF officers and about fifty airmen. Two painfully conspicuous 40-foot wireless masts were encircled by barbed wire. The equipment was very ‘hush-hush’, and not even
Wadey saw inside some of the vehicles.

Two signallers, complete with flags, were attached for communication with Battalion Headquarters. ‘When the show
broke, despite many wearying hours of flag waving they never
made contact with the Battalion,’ says Wadey. The pioneers,
untroubled by paratroops, shot up a glider which landed within
range. In the afternoon Ju52s were seen crash-landing up the
coast. Wadey ‘couldn't understand why something was not
done about this’, so accordingly the two runners, Privates Wan
and Bloomfield, were sent to Headquarters Company to link
up, get information, and report the troops massing from the
crash-landed 52s further up the beach.

The night passed uneventfully except for a large body of
troops marching past the station. This was a sizeable part of
22 Battalion on the withdrawal, but no word was passed to
Wadey. About 10 a.m. on 21 May stragglers and wounded gave
the first reports of the battle and the withdrawal. Later, shots
were exchanged with isolated groups of Germans. A private
had gone back to 21 Battalion for information and failed to
page 76
get any, so Wadey went out himself, later walked into Colonels
Andrew and Allen, with Major Leggat and Captain MacDuff,
and was told to hold his position at all costs, for the airfield was
to be counter-attacked that night. He returned to find one of
the RAF officers wounded.

Private Parker,105 with a section in an outpost outside the
wire, reported enemy flag-waving (ground to air communication), fired, and checked this activity, but soon (perhaps 3.30
p.m.) the bombers turned to pound the mound, a concentrated
target with the vehicles, the masts and the circle of bright new
barbed wire. ‘We received what the battalion had had all the
week … the whole hill was heaving in smoke and dust …
one of the Stukas seemed to be going to drop right on us …
this one carried a bomb, orange in colour, under the belly. I
saw it leave the plane and dive for us and knew it was going
to be close.’ This was the end. The pioneer platoon and the
RAF detachment withdrew from the AMES. With a compound
fracture of the leg, Wadey fainted and regained consciousness.
He and other casualties from the mound were carried to the
21 Battalion RAP, where they were welcomed by Padre Hurst.

When Headquarters Company had pulled out of Pirgos towards dawn on 21 May, Padre Hurst, with twenty walking
wounded, eventually reached 21 Battalion's RAP, where Captain Hetherington106 was in charge. The doctor had arrived by
caique from Greece before battle commenced, and had been
equipped by enemy supplies dropped in his battalion area. In
a cottage turned into an RAP they worked for three days before
capture. During that time a young German officer, Tony
Schultz,107 wounded in the forearm, gave valuable help. He
doubted if his comrades would recognise the Red Cross. To
save the lives of the wounded, sixty British and ten Germans,
a swastika flag was made by cutting up a red flannel petticoat
(found in the loft) and fixing it to a white sheet. Lashing the
page 77
flag to two poles, Hetherington and Hurst hoisted it above the
hedge until firing ceased and slates stopped flying from the
roof. Then a party of Germans, which Padre Hurst thought—
perhaps mistakenly—was a firing party, lined up against a wall
all who could stand. ‘An officer made a fiery speech in German
and we thought we had had it,’ says Hurst, ‘until a wounded
officer we had tended called out from his stretcher in the corner
of the yard. He told how well we had looked after him and his
men and we were reprieved. A nasty moment.’

About the time the AMES was attacked, more wounded
were falling into enemy hands down in the valley. The battalion's medical officer, Captain Longmore, had remained at
the advance RAP, close to the airfield, and had put through
fifty-five to sixty casualties by 3 p.m. An hour and a half before
dusk he was ordered by Colonel Andrew to evacuate the post:
Battalion Headquarters was going back. Led by a battalion
officer and carrying the wounded, they moved ‘up hill and
down dale’ towards 23 Battalion's lines. There was an acute
shortage of stretchers. A severely wounded man carried on a
blanket recalls ‘a man on each corner struggling along in the
dark, bumping and stumbling over things they couldn't see.
I survived the bumping although I don't think I was supposed
to.’ Morning found them camped in a clearing with 160 stretcher cases and walking wounded, among them Lieutenant-
Commander Beale of the Illustrious, and later some wounded
paratroops. Their officer guide left to collect stretcher-bearers
but did not return. ‘The injured made a white circle from RAP
gear,’ writes the doctor, ‘and all the crowd sat inside it. Planes
flew all round but we were never hit, although bombs dropped
all round.’ Twice they tried to get out messages and failed.
At 5 p.m. they were taken prisoner.

Through these next two critical days, 21 and 22 May, the
enemy kept up contact all along 5 Brigade's front. When not
bombing and strafing, fighters circled positions, a bomb poised
menacingly under each wing. Troop-carrying planes, heedless
of fire, began landing methodically on the airfield about 4 p.m.
on 21 May. Perhaps sixty planes landed on 21 May with about
a battalion and a half. More paratroops came down west of
the riverbed. Those men from 22 Battalion who had reached
page 78
21 Battalion's lines waited all night with flares ready to guide
RAF bombers on to the airfield. None came.

The RAPs used up the last dressings; food and water ran
low or ran out altogether; the smell from the dead became
sickening. Enemy parties probed south and behind the brigade.
When flares suddenly went up in the dark from a ridge, accompanied by yells from gathering Germans, an exhausted 22
Battalion man ‘felt like when the police gave me a summons
once.’ Yet at midnight on the 21st a great wave of gratitude
went out to the Royal Navy from the weary men huddled in
the hills above Maleme, for the watchers saw a furious display
of searchlights and blazing guns: our warships were smashing
and routing completely an attempt to land seaborne forces and
equipment.

Before dawn on 22 May the counter-attack on Maleme airfield was launched by 28 (Maori) and 20 Battalions, the latter
coming up from behind Galatas after an unfortunate delay.
Consequently the attack, timed for 1 a.m., did not start until
about 3.30 a.m. From the start line, two miles east of Pirgos
village, the two units carved their way along the coastal area
with plenty of grenade and bayonet work. One company (D
of 20 Battalion) succeeded in reaching in triumph the eastern
edge of Maleme airfield soon after daybreak, but mortars,
machine guns and air attack gradually forced it back. The
remaining troops battled into Pirgos village, but this was the
limit of their advance. Some men from C Company 22 Battalion,108 with a company from the 23rd, joined the Maoris in
the melée round Pirgos.

Over to the south-west, at 7 a.m., 21 Battalion's turn came
to play its part in the counter-attack. Not under cover of darkness but in broad daylight the battalion achieved a spectacular
advance, which showed how thin the Germans still were on
the ground: in three hours it had partly cleared a corridor a
little over a mile long towards Point 107. D Company 22 Battalion, which was operating with Colonel Allen's force, continued to push on until the leaders had nearly reached their
old riverbank positions. Confirming this, Pemberton and Clem
Gilbert (with Fred Palmer109 wounded in their section) say:
page 79
‘It was a hard struggle back after getting so far.’ However,
planes had continued to land with more troops, who were
rushed into the line, and about noon—when reliable news came
of the failure of the counter-attack along the coast—advanced
parties had to be pulled back. ‘They had used incendiary bullets
on us and a whole patch of grain was set alight.’ In the late
afternoon increasing enemy attacks from ground and air forced
the 21 Battalion attackers back to their original positions.

As night came enemy infiltration increased; to the south
strong enemy forces were working round 5 Brigade, whose last
hours in the Maleme area were at hand. Men of the battalion
were scattered among front-line units, and one of them records:
‘… gave up hope, didn't feel bad though, except thought
tough on Mum, Margaret and everyone. Talked to B., he felt
the same…. Waited and wondered what feels like to be
killed. Heard firing and yells from Maoris about 100 yards
away. Had chased Jerries off; could not believe true. Spent
night on watch, half hour each, too tired for more, put tin
hat where would fall on rifle and wake me up if dozed and
nodded head. Told everyone in front were enemy.’ But temporary relief of a kind was coming. In the early hours of 23
May withdrawal was ordered and began, to the angry surprise
of many, though to have remained would have meant disaster.

The next day (23 May) the brigade, hounded and chased
from the air, split into small parties, and now in serious danger
of being cut off altogether, drew back into the east, sheltering
behind 4 Brigade, which was defending Galatas. Villagers on
the way bravely ‘smiled and waved but there were tears in
their eyes.’ Fifth Brigade Headquarters looked grotesque with
abandoned band instruments lying about. ‘We weren't keen
on music by that time, only a little hungry,’ wryly comments
a D Company man. The condition of the men is indicated by
this note: ‘Crossing stream … found several Jerries in water,
smelt awful, had drink anyway.’ Just after this, by the little
coastal settlement of Ay Marina, a small and most welcome
party returned unexpectedly to the unit. Private Follas110 and
one or two others from the battalion had been serving a few
days' detention in the Field Punishment Centre in the Malemepage 80
sector when the invasion began. Collecting automatics and ammunition from canisters falling providentially near, the inmates
and guards (sixty altogether) zealously dealt out punishment
to paratroops, took prisoners, hunted snipers, and gave valuable
protection to a nearby troop of New Zealand guns, whose
officer, Captain Snadden,111 would say: ‘When we put a shot in
there, you get everyone who runs out.’ In the general withdrawal a few in Follas's group collected a donkey, loaded it with
four spandaus, carried the ammunition themselves and, after
taking part in a brisk skirmish yielding twenty prisoners, met 22
Battalion survivors in the afternoon. ‘What have you been pinching this time?’ asked Colonel Andrew, viewing approvingly
the donkey, the spandaus, and the ammunition. (On the subsequent retreat to Sfakia the donkey, already a well-known
personality in the battalion and called ‘Sweet Nell’, was hit
during an air raid and had to be shot.)

Behind the defenders of Galatas the battalion was just over
200 strong—enough for two companies under Hanton and
Campbell. Their task was to defend Divisional Headquarters
against parachutists, to defend a ridge which was part of the
reserve line, and to counter-attack if needed. For two days the
remains of the battalion stayed in these reserve positions, dug
by other troops earlier and giving protection from spasmodic
strafing. Movement was cut to a minimum, and troops were
prohibited from opening fire on aircraft so that positions would
remain concealed, an order hard to obey, particularly when
one aircraft, nicknamed ‘George’, regularly swooped so low
that the pilot's features could be seen. This passive attitude,
for those unable to hit back, was most depressing.

The air attacks increased on 26 May, and the pressure continued on the sorely tried front-line units, by now forced back
a mile behind Galatas after defiantly but briefly reoccupying
the town at dusk in a last desperate bayonet charge. Twenty-second Battalion group's turn came in the afternoon of the
26th, following rumours (false) of an enemy break-through towards the coast. The battalion moved from its reserve positions
along the ridge and across a road to help plug the rumoured
breach. This emergency move, doubly dangerous in daylight,
page 81
was cancelled half-way through, but not before men in
Hanton's group were strafed in a ditch and had suffered ten
casualties.

In the night the battalion joined 5 Brigade's retreat south-westwards of Suda Bay, Colonel Andrew and Major Leggat
taking turns at the front and rear, but unfortunately the battalion split into two separate parties in the darkness. A brief
stand was made in rearguard actions on 27 May on a line
known as 42nd Street (this was a mile west of Suda village)
and again at Stilos, seven to eight miles back on the road
leading inland into the mountains and on towards the south
coast.

One day was very like another. ‘All day you lay hidden in
trees nibbling anything you could get. We struck a few trucks
that had been hit and had some broken biscuits. No tea of
course for we couldn't risk fires…. On other times we
marched at night and into the dawn till the first plane was
heard and that was the sign to take to the trees. You never saw
such hills. The road had a good surface but went … [zigzagging endlessly] and you seemed hours in going half a mile.
Two nights I think to get to the top—just with your head down
and your tongue hanging out because there was no water.’ At
Stilos on 28 May men, worn out and gaunt through long
marches, little sleep, poor food, and the day-long blitzes,
learned that their destination was Sfakia, on the south coast,
about 40 miles by the twisting road. They rallied in the morning
for the last and the roughest trek of all, heading into the dry
and dusty hills.

Survivors still say there seemed to be no end to the road up
‘Phantom Hill’. Men, exhausted and ill, were held together by
dogged endurance and the encouragement of their comrades.
Mate helped mate. ‘The discipline on the march was a credit
to the Brigade,’ says 5 Brigade's diary. One man felt he was
going to crack. Colonel Andrew casually sat down beside him,
and on learning where he was educated, yarned away quietly
about school-days at Wanganui Collegiate. ‘I was OK after
that.’

They hid up on a rocky, pine-dotted hillside near the beach.
From here and there more parties and members of the battalion
page 82
turned up.112 Major Leggat thinks that here came one of the
most dramatic moments of his life: ‘… we were told they
couldn't take us. No one spoke for quite a while and then we
just rolled our pipe tobacco in our newspaper cigarette-paper’;
and the major concluded his letter home: ‘You can see that
it was not the glorious affair that the papers write about. All
you needed was good feet and the ability to go without water.’

Instead of embarking, the weary battalion suddenly had been
ordered to take part in the final rearguard, remaining ashore
to cover the last evacuation that night, 30 May. Captain Stan
Johnson writes:

After the exhaustion of the fighting of the preceding ten days,
the incessant bombing and strafing, the frequent withdrawals and
rearguards, the casualties, the lack of food and of sleep, and with
that hollow feeling in one's stomach resulting not only from the
knowledge of failure, but also from the feeling of having been let
down some ten days earlier, when the counter-attack at Maleme
did not eventuate as promised, this was almost a knockout blow!

How to tell our troops, those gallant fellows who had given of
their all so uncomplainingly, that Egypt was not for us, that we
were to fight on till 10 a.m. the next day? It speaks volumes for the
morale of the Battalion and of the integrity and loyalty of the
soldiers that not one man anticipated the order by leaving his post
during the night.

The next day, spirits soared with the news that more ships
were returning to Crete and that the battalion, after doing a
final beach-perimeter and control-point duty, would be evacuated.

Half an hour before midnight on 31 May the battalion began
embarking, every man shaved, every man fully equipped (for
those without gear equipped themselves from cast-aside
material). Whalers, assault landing craft and motor landing
craft took troops to the waiting ships: the minelayer Abdiel,
the light cruiser Phoebe, and the destroyers Jackal, Kimberley,
and Hotspur. Colonel Andrew and two other officers were the
last aboard. In Egypt he wrote the last two pages which closed
the battalion war diary for May 1941:

This record for May 1941 is of a young battalion which had been
‘blooded’ just a month before in Greece and was called upon to
withstand a ‘blitz’ of the utmost fury and intenseness, fight against
terrific odds, suffer severe casualties, and undergo tests of endurance
and morale that many a veteran unit does not come up against
throughout its service. Nothing which was encountered by units of
the 1st N.Z.E.F. can compare with the period 20/31 May 1941,
and yet I am glad to be able to report that this young battalion
proved they could ‘take it’, give plenty in return and remain as a
useful unit to the last day.

The casualties113 for the period 20/25 May were 53% and for
the month of May 62.35% of strength….

Many lessons have been learned and we should benefit from
these in future actions. We know now that we can deal with the
enemy even with his tanks and/or aeroplanes, that he does not like
night work or the bayonet, and that on the ground he is no match
for our men. Even though we had to withdraw for eleven days we
had our ‘tails up’ in defeat.

3‘I am quite certain that Col. Andrew remarked after the visit [of Brigadier
Hargest] that he pointed out the need for troops across the Tavronitis from 22,
but for some reason, probably lack of troops available, this was not put into
effect.’—Sergeant F. N. Twigg, 22 Battalion Intelligence Sergeant.

4‘The garrison was expecting eight more Hurricanes with fresh pilots on 20 May
(Lt-Cmdr Black had been sent back to Alexandria to fetch them), but before
they could reach the island the airborne invasion began.’—Fleet Air Arm (prepared
for the Admiralty by the Ministry of Information, 1943), a booklet which shows
that the Fleet Air Arm men generally acquitted themselves well ‘against hopeless
odds and impossible conditions' in the tragic twilight of Maleme.

5Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Fleet Air Arm, Royal Tank Regiment, Royal
Artillery, Royal Australian Artillery, New Zealand Artillery, New Zealand
Engineers, 21, 22, 23 and 28 Battalions, 27 (MG) Battalion, Royal Air Force.
Colonel Andrew had made several unsuccessful attempts to gain some sort of
co-operation from the RM, FAA, RAF and Bofors gunners in his area. The RAF
camp near the bridge seriously impaired 22 Battalion's defensive perimeter.

6Three Bren carriers with drivers in charge of a corporal were on loan to 22 Battalion from 1 Battalion, The Welch Regt. As the battalion's carrier platoon had
gone to Egypt from Greece, the crews for these carriers were supplied by 2 (Anti-Aircraft) Platoon under Lt J. Forster. No. 3 (Carrier) Platoon men who
had been
left behind in Greece later escaped to Crete. They were Cpl Jim Hurne (soon
evacuated sick) and Ptes Jack Weir and Maurie Cowlrick. They manned a fourth
carrier (which had been salvaged from a sunken ship at Suda Bay) and fixed
up a Bren gun ‘with a bit of olive branch and a piece of tin.’ The second carrier
had a Bren, and the remaining two had Brownings without sights, so tracer was
used to give direction.

The three escapers mentioned above had pushed off from Argos in a Greek
boat. They made down the bay (no rudder, rowing) and pulled into the shore
for cover when planes came over. Landing on an island, they broke down the
chapel door which yielded a rudder—of sorts. On another island they stole
another boat with a useless engine and a sail and made their way to the tip of
Greece, struck two islands (Kithira and Antikithira), and in eight days made
the western end of Crete. Rations and water were slender (a glass of wine and
a small boiled egg apiece were all they could manage for their first meal in Crete);
‘Jack Weir had a hunch (correct) over navigation. He was a born bush-mechanic.’

7Student had the tables turned on him at Arnhem (4600 aircraft in this airborne
operation). Watching ‘an immense stream’, he exclaimed: ‘Oh, how I wish that
I had ever had such powerful means at my disposal!’ See The Struggle for Europe,
by Chester Wilmot.

15This was probably due in part to casualties among gun crews during the
blitz. By no means alone in his opinion, Lieutenant Robin Sinclair (15 Platoon)
is emphatic that some Bofors were out of action through faulty or missing parts.
Captain Johnson speaks of a late order (19 May) telling certain guns to move
positions slightly before opening fire again. Nevertheless some of these guns were
still firing at 3 p.m., according to 5 Brigade war diary. One 22 Battalion man,
Bill Hulton, says: ‘I have great admiration for [Bofors crews] and also for the
Jerry pilots who attacked them. On many occasions I saw Stuka pilots diving
down the fire of these guns, and had no misgivings as to whether I would have
had the guts to withstand such a gaff.’

27Attending the dying man were stretcher-bearers Trevor Wallace and Ray
Kennedy. The two found ‘that the stretcher needed so urgently was being used
as a bed by a driver, yes, we had to get [him] to part with it. Bloomfield, past our help, died shortly after we got him on the stretcher. We placed him in a deep
dry watercourse handy to Coy HQ, an area we'd selected to place wounded.’

35The reasons are discussed in the Crete volume of the official history of New
Zealand in the Second World War.

36Captain Johnson cannot understand this statement. He recalls all 10 guns
firing regularly on days preceding the invasion. He had hoped that some of the guns
could have been silenced, resited, and then could have taken the German by
surprise if an airborne invasion began.

The views of men who still stoutly maintain that the anti-aircraft guns did not
fire on invasion day can be summed up in the words of CSM H. Strickland.
Gliders, troop-carriers and parachutists, ‘an ack-ack gunner's dream, they were
sitting shots but there were no shots. All due respect to … [D. M. Davin's
Crete] the guns didn't roar into action, not at Maleme. There was an order that
they were not to open fire, and they didn't.’ Perhaps one day this controversy
will be investigated and settled.

46Doc’ Fowke was apparently the only man to escape from 15 Platoon. He
crossed the centre of the airfield after dark and rejoined Company Headquarters.
Most of 15 Platoon were wounded or killed. He brought news of Mehaffey, whom
he had nursed with two others in their weapon pit until they died.

4913 Platoon, cut off, made its own way back after dark, greatly assisted by Bob
Bayliss, then a private—a clear example of a natural leader coming to the fore
and assuming control successfully when everything looked hopeless. Deducing
(with German voices everywhere) that Company Headquarters had been captured, the platoon made its way east of B Company area and rejoined the company early next morning.

50The total number to leave 14 Pl and Coy HQ area at 0430 hrs was approx
40 made up of about 14 unwounded, and the 14 wounded C Coy men and about
12 RAF and LAA troops. En route we picked up perhaps a further 12 mixed
troops, some 22 Bn and some FAA; but we dropped 6 including the CSM Bob
Adams, Cpl Smith 14 Pl, and Cpl Earnshaw Coy HQ. On the ridge we picked
up 13 Pl approx 15 strong. The above figures are not accurate, but they are as
near as I can remember. My check in 21 Bn area about 1100 hrs, after I had got
all our wounded including Donald off to the 21 Bn RAP gave me 27 unwounded
… C Coy men…. half of us had dysentery in a rather severe form. Donald
did an excellent job—as always—clearing local area on ridge and covering the
withdrawal of the wounded. He did not receive a decoration here, but I certainly
recommended him for one for his magnificent behaviour and gallant leadership
during the continuous period of 30 hours.’—Captain Johnson.

64L-Cpl A. D. Dunn; Stratford; born NZ 3 Jan 1914; storeman; p.w. 21 May
1941. Dunn writes that he later escaped ‘and spent three months searching
around Crete for Transport back to Egypt…. [Because of] the heavy strain on
the villages where these staunch people were trying to feed so many and mostly
due to the severe punishment the Germans were handing out to those people
caught assisting British Soldiers I decided with my companion, Pte D. Grylls,
that on information which we had received we would try and find our way back
to Greece and on to Turkey. After exchanging our uniforms for Civilian clothing
we contacted a chap with a sixteen foot boat and rowed our way back to Greece
landing at a Coastal Village…. After resting there for three days we decided
to press on to Turkey, quite easy really, but we had picked up an English Soldier
at the Village who wanted to tag along with us and did, but his lack of fitness
started to hamper our progress and in allowing a rest on the outskirts of a Town
we were invited to the Police Station where we were Jailed and sold to the
Italians….’

76Jerry Fowler, after paying a warm tribute to the way a nearby 27 (MG)
Battalion section under Corporal Gould covered the bridge, sums up: ‘the whole
of Don Coy held out the whole day and did not move from our original positions
until night, and only then when we had found out that Bn HQ had fallen back,
they evidently thinking that our Coy had been overrun. We were not overrun,
and had more than held our own with all enemy landed or advanced into our
area. In my opinion our Coy Com. Capt. Campbell put up a very good show
and proved himself a very fearless and brave soldier. The soldier on that day
whom I will always remember is our Coy runner Mick Bourke of Stratford. He
did some very grand work that fateful morning, and his personal bravery I will
always remember.’

77The airfield was to be held at all costs; no alternative scheme is mentioned
in available official records. This was purely a D Company plan. As far as the
whole battalion was concerned, the airfield was to be held at all costs; but, remembering the lessons of Greece, Campbell had thought it wise to have an alternative
plan and had instructed his platoon commanders to re-form to the south ‘if the
worst happened’. The precaution availed D Company nothing.

86Watching the blitz, Williams saw British gunners (4-inch, 3-inch and Bofors)
plastered and blown from their posts by bombs: one second-lieutenant remained
alive among the officers on the 4-inch guns. This answers criticism by the infantry,
who could not understand why the Marines on their two 4-inch guns did not fire
a shot. In any case, the guns were sited for firing out to sea and could not sweep
the critical western bank of the river where the Germans were massing.

89In fairness to these men it should be said that by the afternoon a large part of
the ill-armed congregation of displaced airmen, sailors, and gunners had sorted
themselves out into some shape on the south side of Point 107. Lieutenant Ramsay
(RNVR) says: ‘The F.A.A. had taken up positions directed by a combination of
their own inclinations and any officer who appeared to know anything about the
situation—Col. Andrew was occasionally seen for instance—but no one loved us
or took any interest in us….’ The group in the afternoon ‘had a pretty bad
time, but when dark came the situation seemed safe but highly uncomfortable
except for the West side of the Hill which was now completely occupied by
Germans.’ With no information and no guides reaching them in the dark, they
nevertheless remained on the southern slopes of Point 107 until 4 a.m. (21 May),
an indication that the group, although bewildered, was not demoralised. At
4 a.m. they struck out for the hills further inland. Ramsay's report continues:

‘1.

We didn't know where our own people were.

‘2.

We didn't know where the enemy were.

‘3.

Many people had no rifles.

‘4.

Many people had. 30 rifles and no ammo.

‘5.

Everyone was desperately tired, thirsty and hungry. We had no food
and no water.

‘5.

We had no objective to make for.’

Matters did not improve when the party did manage to contact the New
Zealanders in 21 and 23 Battalions' areas. From then on, unwanted, ‘without
any understanding of who was who’, they were shuttled disconcertingly from one
unit or group to the other until carried away in the general retreat east to Canea.

95Yet within half an hour of the drop Slade's cook came over to Company Headquarters badly wounded in the face, ‘painting a grim picture of Slade's area
being wiped out’. Slade is believed to have been killed in a German plane which
was shot down while evacuating severely wounded prisoners to Greece.

103‘Let me say at once, I do not for one moment hold Col. Andrew responsible
for the failure to hold Maleme; he was given an impossible task, and he has my
sympathy,’ writes General Freyberg in a letter to the author in January 1956.
‘I take full responsibility as regards the policy of holding the aerodrome. I did
not like the defences of any of my four garrisons. I would have put in another
Infantry Battalion to help Andrew, but it was impossible in the time to dig them
in. The ground was solid rock, neither did we have the tools. Puttick, Hargest
and I must bear our share of responsibility for the defensive positions that were
taken up at Maleme, which were as good as we could hope for under the difficult
circumstances.’

104General Ringel, who commanded 5 German Mountain Division, and General
Sturm, who (as a colonel) commanded the air landing at Retimo, made the
following comments on an official German study of the Balkan campaign: ‘The
passive attitude of the British Command in the neighbourhood of the important
air-landing base of the Germans, Maleme, was decisive for the loss of Crete.
The British were satisfied with firing against this landing place instead of recapturing the airfield in a counter attack immediately after the first landing. This
would have made the landing of the 5th Mountain Division with transport
machines impossible and would have doomed the parachutists so far landed in
Crete … no sufficient naval material was available for a German invasion by
sea in the entire Aegean.’

107The Padre gave Schultz his wife's address in case a letter could be sent saying
the New Zealander was captured and alive. Schultz, later captured in the Desert,
spent the war in America, returned to Germany and, wishing to become a teacher,
entered a university in the British Zone through a reference from the Padre. He
is now a teacher and happily married. Padre Hurst has a photo of the wedding
group.

108The term ‘C Coy 22 Bn’ covers remnants of C Company and others from
22 Battalion; the same is meant by ‘D Coy’ in the following paragraph.

112Sargeson's party, after hiding all day on 21 May above Maleme in a long,
overgrown ditch, had tiptoed out undetected when night fell, and their luck
holding, succeeded in making through the rocky ranges ‘rather like a bit of typical
NZ mountain bush country I suppose, not so much bush.’ They shared one tin
of M & V, spoonful by spoonful, between 14 hungry, weary and ill-shod men.
One man sucked a raw egg. After reaching a village four miles from Souriya
Bay, on the south coast, other escapers attempted and failed to reach Sfakia
(already rumoured as the point of evacuation) by boat. Sargeson's party then
made for Sfakia, following roughly along the rugged, arid coastline and suffering
from hunger and thirst. Shooting a small goat and boiling it in salt water in a
petrol tin found on the beach, they also drank the briny soup. ‘We learned that
the pangs of hunger (which we had somewhat abated) were a trifle, compared
to the punishing agony of thirst.’ That night, on a ridge, investigating the sound
of croaking frogs (‘Hallucination perhaps’), they found neither swamp nor water.
A day later, almost beyond care, they stumbled on a stream. Four scattered Greek
settlements provided enough slender food and water to see them to Sfakia at
7 p.m. on 31 May, and only when on the minelayer Abdiel did Sargeson eat his
army emergency ration: ‘I had argued that while I could still walk I could keep
that concentrated can till I reached more desperate straits.’